


An Inelegant Escape

by The Primera Haruoka (TenshiEren14)



Series: Two Breaths, Walking. [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Aizawa didn't sign up for any of this, Aizawa's a Shady Guy(tm), Aizawa's alias is Showa Aiura, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hizashi makes terrible life decisions, Hizashi's a musician, Legendary Pokemon are assholes, Lore - Freeform, More tags to be added!, Mostly Gen, PokeAU, They're both just about 19, This is the weirdest buddy cop movie, deaf!Hizashi Yamada, happy reading!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 20:35:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18017987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenshiEren14/pseuds/The%20Primera%20Haruoka
Summary: For the Boku no Pokemon Hero Big Bang!The plan was quite simple. Get in, get blessed, bum around until March.Unfortunately, mainlanders are terribly rude and just as pushy. Aizawa truly has neither the time nor the energy to be insulted by this blond acquisition.





	An Inelegant Escape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maely1234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maely1234/gifts).



> Thank you very much to my co-conspirator, without whom none of this madness would be even vaguely possible!

Ecruteak City was strange.

To be fair, Johto as a whole was something incredibly foreign to the sensibilities of Aizawa Shouta. He had spent most of the year in Hoenn where the air was either tinged with the humidity of the ocean or scorched from the intensity of the active volcano’s virulent smoke.  Before that, he had spent the Pyroar’s share of his life in the desiccated air of his home country, whose extreme temperatures and capricious sandstorms made the air about as comfortable to breathe as it was to swallow glass through the nostrils. Johto’s air however, was mild. Uncomfortably mild. It had taken him three days to get used to the sheer ease with which he could respire when he had landed in Cherrygrove, a period that had been marred with the loathsome process of decongestion and acclimatization both to the language and the people. The disquieting slide of the warm yet crisp air had unsettled him, alienated him even further in an environment that his mind had already labelled as foreign. In Johto, it was acceptable to walk side by side with one’s Pokemon, even if said Pokemon was something obscene like Steelix or inconvenient like Tyranitar. Aizawa had yet to see any of the aforementioned Pokemon but he had checked with the Foreign Bureau just out of curiosity. The people were friendly and hardworking, accommodating in a way that while strange to him, was apparently commonplace on the mainland. 

Aizawa had left Cherrygrove as quickly as he could despite the lingering feelings of queasiness. He had been more or less forced to move on posthaste from Hoenn to Johto after he had won the Lilycove Festival and consequently, been invited to participate in the Wallace Cup on public television by the flamboyant co-Champion of Hoenn himself. 

He had been in such a foul mood while he had booked the ferry tickets that he was surprised he hadn’t been reported to the police. 

Truth was, Aizawa didn’t have much to do in Johto at this time of year. December meant winter when he was this far east and winter usually meant that the forests were barren, naturally eliminating half of his reason for even wanting to spend time in the sea bound region. With that out of the question, the most pressing of his duties in Johto involved heading into the den of a flock of territorial Articuno and though Aizawa did not mind the mission (this was a birthright of his after all), he also had no inclination towards seeing his patron again. He had been attempting to avoid facing the guardian of the seas for far longer than he had wanted to admit to himself. Coming to Johto this early simply meant that he could no longer ignore his duty nor could he continue to stagnate because of the circumstances that had befallen him. 

He had wasted a fair bit of time in Goldenrod City, something he had thought was warranted after he had rushed past Cherrygrove and Violet due to the sheer outlandishness of the cities in relation to his personal standards of ‘acceptable norm’. He hadn’t minded exploring the vast city of gold. The conurbation was packed with people and Pokemon of course, broad streets of red brick were filled with swathes of opportunists and businessmen and con-artists just like all great cities of the world. Amongst the filth whose tawny eyes undermined the sheer complexity of their slippery webs were the beacons of hope and budding paragons of change. Mainlanders were strange people; standardised and frivolous and altogether lacking in any sort of respect for the art form called ‘battling’ they so callously mutilated on a day to day basis but Goldenrod City had not been completely unpleasant. 

Aizawa had met Midoriya Inko there after all. 

Midoriya had been the leading judge of the illicit tournament, a woman of refined grace who stood out like a lofty lighthouse against the dull, grim backdrop of smoke-choked air and hungry eyes. She had been dressed in traditional Johtonian clothing, a garment called a kimono whose garish red brought to mind the picture of a delicate flame wrapped tight to her body’s every contour. Aizawa’s eyes had been drawn to her quiet imposition at first and then he had been awed by her maternal aura. There was something in her mannerisms that marked her as soothing to the sensibilities even amidst the heavy air of distrust and ambition that clogged the lungs as the registrations took place. She had further cemented her place as a person of interest on Aizawa’s radar after she had approached him the first time, a soft smile attractively dimpling freckled cheeks as she asked for permission to pet Kuro. Aizawa had caught the excuse to engage him a mile away and obliged her, even humouring her deeply accented voice as she danced about her reasons for talking to him before wishing him luck and commending his care of his Absol.    

She was the only one who had recognised him. 

Looking back on it now, Aizawa was grateful that she had chosen to be discreet about it. He could quite clearly remember the spark of acknowledgement in her verdant eyes as he finished the last leg of the showcase, could recall the how dread sank into his bones like the acerbic underground air had weighed on his senses, how he’d had to physically stop himself from slipping up and making an arse of himself on stage. Midoriya had pulled him aside during the intermission, her soft hands unyielding against the sleeve of his ratty, secondhand coat and in that same maternal voice had asked him to pull out of the contest. 

_ ‘Other people need this money more,’ _ was what she had said to him, ‘ _ Please.’  _

Aizawa had never been one to care for sob stories. So what if these winnings could go towards the scrappy looking kids who moved like the Underground was their natural habitat? The desperation of others had little bearing on his own circumstances and people had another thing coming if they assumed that he was anything but a filthy opportunist. There were lessons to be learned in the pains of hunger and bitterness; far be it from Aizawa to deprive those unfortunate souls of such valuable experience.  Her fingers were steel against his flesh however, a power in those starshine eyes that called out to him. Altruism was a worthless ideal, nonsensical and exploitable like a half dozen other tenants that comprised the motto of mainland living but, in that moment, Midoriya Inko had spoken to him.

It wasn’t vapid kindness if he demanded something in return.

* * *

 

In the end she had invited him back to her theatre in Ecruteak.

‘Kimono Girl’ was what she called herself, an anointed lorekeeper of Johto’s mercurial guardians. It was a common habit of hers to run away from the stuffy Ecruteak air, to flirt with the edges of Johto’s seedy underbelly in a thinly veiled search for Trainers worthy of facing down the raging waves of Lugia’s breath or the torrid heat of Ho-oh’s wings. It had been coincidence that she happened to be loitering about for the tournament when Aizawa was had blown into town--fate she had called it. Aizawa had neatly avoided that idea. 

She was a woman whose voice knew no weariness. She needled Aizawa about the depth of his voice, the novelty of his ragged accent, the brand of his shampoo, and in return Aizawa graced her with brief answers, grunts and nods or, if he were feeling particularly generous, the occasional word. Her dithering had never crossed the threshold of aggravance, however. Each word she spoke carried multiple meanings; coded sentences that forewarned Aizawa of the tenuous nature of the Theatre’s politics, gentle proddings on his business in Johto, pleasantries concerning the fables of the Burned Tower and its mythic inhabitants. Amidst the volley of words that fell from her plush lips came the tantalizing prospect of a battle, an intelligent coercion to keep Aizawa’s half waned attention. 

Aizawa had taken the time to get properly acquainted with the Johto language. 

Kantonian was something his father had taught him once upon a time and for the most part, the language had remained in his brain despite the vocabulary and grammar being beyond rusted from disuse. Johtonian was very much like Kantonian with the exception of a few rather strange turns of phrase that were, unfortunately, commonplace in their speech. Thankfully Midoriya had taken his quiet as a ‘natural part of his charm’, whatever that meant, and had happily spoken enough for them both. By the time they had arrived at the gilded gates of the ancient city, Aizawa had become unfortunately endeared to Midoriya and her diamond dust freckles which, when combined with the otherwise unblemished porcelain of her skin, resembled a handful of stars in an unclouded sky.  

They had parted thusly, promises of a tour falling from Midoriya’s delicate mouth as Aizawa meandered away in pursuit of a Pokecenter and food that didn’t come directly from the boughs of uncomfortably healthy trees. 

* * *

 

The morning brought with it the wearisome realisation that Ecruteak City was a town steepled in tradition. 

It was unignorable. The air felt different in this city, settled heavier on his shoulders with a density that sprung from sources other than the myriad of people who milled about the Pokemon Center‘s reception room despite the early hour. There was an ease to it all that disquieted Aizawa, an normalcy in the pressure that wholeheartedly contradicted every prior sensibility in Aizawa’s head when it came to dealing with the legends of the land. Kuro seemed unbothered from besides him as they ate breakfast together, the soft music that Nurse Joy had decided to play grating against Aizawa’s already uneasy senses. He chalked it up to his own paranoia playing tricks on him. If his Absol was at peace, then Aizawa was simply being dramatic. 

His unease only grew as he left the Pokemon  Center and stepped out into the chilled dawn air. 

The architecture of Ecruteak City was gorgeous. Paper houses supported by wooden bones and stone roofs stood as proud monoliths in the half light of almost morning. The streets under his booted feet were carefully maintained brick, coloured and carved and painstakingly placed such that not even weeds could grow in between the gaps. Red gates and altars to the Pokemon who patrolled the area littered the landscape and weaved overhead were oblong paper lanterns most of which were still lit and flickering in their confines. 

There was a recurring motif stenciled into the posts of gates and verandas of prestigious looking houses. A blacked out figure arced over into a half a circle, its wings stretching far above its tucked head to complete the semi-circle shape. It was a mark he was over familiar with, an image he had branded across his brain with too much accuracy. It brought memories of melodic laughter to his ears, visions of sand and sea and approving eyes. It brought feelings of guilt, remnants of sensations he had not bothered with since he had first thrown his soul away to travel. Aizawa aggressively smothered any lingering swellings in his chest as he stared long and neutral at the mark painted onto the wall of a residential complex a few lots away from a vacant, burnt out area. 

The sigil of Lugia. 

Aizawa’s heart gave a pitiful sigh in the prison of his chest, a sad attempt at garnering introspection that was ruthlessly and unconsciously stomped out until the feeling died. He buried his hand in Kuro’s furry head, a quiet motion that brokered a shallow purr from his companion. The wind blew again, rougher this time as the sun began hauling itself across the horizon, its unwilling light barely breaking past the smattering of blue shingles and rich green that bordered the skylines of the city. Kuro nudged his thigh, her gentle reminder to keep moving  breaking his pensive mood. 

This place reminded him of home. 

He haboured distinct hatred for that.

Aizawa delicately ignored the weight of nostalgia scrabbling against the edges of his consciousness and kept moving. Midoriya was expecting him. 

 


End file.
